‘Yes,’ she muttered to it, and saw how its ears tilted in her direction, ‘a fist to your damned head if you try for any real bedding.’ Of course, if she raised a hand to the dog, her son would be the one doing all the howling.
Hetan glanced over as the hide flap was tugged aside and Tool, ducking to clear the entrance, entered the yurt. ‘Look at your son,’ she accused. ‘He’s going to poke out the damn thing’s eyes. And get a hand bitten off, or worse.’
Her husband squinted down at the squirming toddler, but it was clear he was too distracted to offer anything in the way of comment. Instead, he crossed the chamber and collected up his fur-bound flint sword.
Hetan sat straighter. ‘What’s happened?’
‘I am not sure,’ he replied. ‘On this day, Barghast blood has been spilled.’
She was on her feet-noting that the hound lifted its head at the sudden tension-and, taking her scabbarded cutlasses, she followed Tool outside.
She saw nothing awry, barring the growing attention her husband garnered as he set out purposefully up the main avenue that bisected the encampment, heading westward. He still possessed some of the sensitivities of the T’lan Imass he had once been-Hetan did not doubt his assertion. Moving up alongside him, acutely aware of other warriors falling into their wake, she shot him a searching look, saw his sorrow stung afresh, his weariness furrowing deep lines on his brow and face.
‘One of the outlying clans?’
He grimaced. ‘There is no place on this earth, Hetan, where the Imass have not walked. That presence greets my eyes thick as fog, a reminder of ancient things, no matter where I look.’
‘Does it blind you?’
‘It is my belief,’ he replied, ‘that it blinds all of us.’
She frowned, unsure of his meaning. ‘To what?’
‘That we were not the first to do so.’
His response chilled her down in her bones. ‘Tool, have we found our enemy?’
The question seemed to startle him. ‘Perhaps. But…’
‘What?’
‘I hope not.’
By the time they reached the encampment’s western edge, at least three hundred warriors were following them, silent and expectant, perhaps even eager although they could know nothing of their Warleader’s intent. The sword in Tool’s hands had been transformed into a standard, a brandished sigil held so loosely, in a manner suggesting careless indifference, that it acquired the gravity of an icon-Onos Toolan’s deadly slayer, drawn forth with such reluctance-the promise of blood and war.
The far horizon was a black band soon to swallow the sun.
Tool stood staring at it.
Behind them the crowd waited amidst the rustle of weapons, but no one spoke a word.
‘That storm,’ she asked him quietly, ‘is it sorcery, husband?’
He was long in replying. ‘No, Hetan.’
‘And yet…’
‘Yes. And yet.’
‘Will you tell me nothing?’
He glanced at her and she was shocked at his ravaged expression. ‘What shall I say?’ he demanded in sudden anger. ‘Half a thousand Barghast are dead. Killed in twenty heartbeats. What do you want me to say to you?’
She almost recoiled at his tone. Trembling, she broke contact with his hard glare. ‘You have seen this before, haven’t you? Onos Toolan-say it plain!’
‘I will not.’
So many bonds forged between them, years of passion and the deepest of loves, all snapped with his denial. She reeled inside, felt tears spring to her eyes. ‘All that we have-you and me-all of it, does it mean nothing, then?’
‘It means everything. And so if I must, I will cut my tongue from my mouth, rather than reveal to you what I now know.’
‘We have our war, then.’
‘Beloved.’ His voice cracked on the word and he shook his head. ‘Dearest wife, forge of my heart, I want to run. With you, with our children. Run , do you hear me? An end to this rule-I do not want to be the one to lead the Barghast into this-do you understand?’ The sword fell at his feet and a shocked groan erupted from the mob behind them.
She so wanted to take him into her arms. To protect him, from all this, from the knowledge devouring him from the inside out. But he gave her no opening, no pathway back to him. ‘I will stand with you,’ she said, as the tears spilled loose and tracked down her cheeks. ‘I will always do so, husband, but you have taken away all my strength. Give me something, please, anything. Anything .’
He reached up to his own face and seemed moments from clawing deep gouges down its length. ‘If-if I am to refuse them. Your people, Hetan. If I am to lead them away from here, from this prophesied fate you are all so desperate to embrace, do you truly believe they will follow me?’
